Wednesday, April 8, 2015

OWN Breaks Viewership Records; Delivers Most-Watched Quarter in Network History

Season 2 of Tyler Perry's If Loving You is Wrong premiered March 24 on OWN.

OWN: Oprah Winfrey Network delivered its most-watched quarter in network history in Q1 2015 with 581,000 total primetime viewers, up +44% vs. prior quarter. The network also achieved its highest quarterly rank in prime in network history at #21 in the key W25-54 demo (among ad-supported cable networks).

Additionally, OWN had its most-watched week in network history for the week of March 23, with 798,000 total viewers in prime. The records for both the most-watched quarter and the most-watched week are consistent in both Live+SD and Live+3 data. Moving forward, the network will be reporting Live+3 data, with the exclusion of live and event programming.

The ratings momentum in Q1 2015 was driven by several of the network's original series:

· Popular series The Haves and the Have Nots and If Loving You is Wrong, both from Tyler Perry, led to OWN's most-watched night in network history on March 24, with primetime averaging nearly 2.9 million viewers. In L+3, The Haves and the Have Nots (9 p.m.) earned a 3.13 rating W25-54 (up +19% vs. LSD) and attracted 4 million viewers (up +14% vs. LSD) and If Loving You is Wrong (10 p.m.) earned a 2.71 rating W25-54 (up +22% vs. LSD) and attracted 3.5 million viewers (up +16% vs. LSD).

· Competitive data: For the quarter, The Haves and the Have Nots and If Loving You is Wrong led OWN to be Tuesday night's #1 cable network among women and #1 network on all of TV among African-American women and total viewers

· Comedy series Love Thy Neighbor from Tyler Perry was Wednesday night's #2 original cable series for African-American women, driving OWN to be Wednesday night's #2 cable network for African-American women

· The must talked about special featuring Iyanla Vanzant's sit down with Chris Brown's ex Karrueche Tran (3/28/15 at 8 p.m.) Iyanla Exclusive: Karrueche Tran posted 813,000 total viewers, a 0.76 rating W25-54 and a 3.93 African-American W25-54, marking the network's strongest performance in the time period since February 2013 and ranked #1 in the time period among African-American women

· Welcome to Sweetie Pie's, Raising Whitley and 2 Fat 2 Fly were Saturday night's top 3 original cable series for the quarter among African-American women. Welcome to Sweetie Pie's most recent episode (3/28/15 at 9 p.m.) posted 1.06 million viewers and a 0.98 rating W25-54 and a 5.06 rating African-American W25-54, tying the show's highest W25-54 rating of the season, becoming Saturday night's #1 cable telecast among African-American women and the #1 non-sports telecast for African-American total viewers. Additionally, Saturday's episode ranked as the #2 episode this season among total viewers and the series achieved its highest African-American W25-54 rating this season